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I was saying that whether the health comes from a shield or from health regen, they are both reduced in effectiveness from armor pen/magic pen. Shields are made stronger to make up for that fact they are temporary health so it doesn't make since that health regen gets nerfed and not shields.

This is balanced by shield being a reactive defense verses passive sustain.

Riot has said this.

It is balanced because just as you can incorrectly shield someone and make it ineffective, I can switch my target to do the same.

I'm trying to think of someone who even has that good of a shield, whereas if it's heals I can easily think of Soraka, WW, Vlad, Mundo, Irelia, Yorick's E, Summoner Heal and any carry that finished a sanguine - not to mention the characters with built in vamp/lifesteal. There's a lot of kits that are just completely built around crazy super-sustain.

Keep in mind heals can be continuously reapplied to *increase* one's HP, a shield is either up or isn't - spamming it at your tower isn't going to save you from having to B.

Shields prevent death.
Shields give the enemy 2 options: waste damage to break the shield or stop doing damage for the duration (which is usually 5+ seconds). Either way, the shield prevented tons of damage.
Shields are unaffected by Grievous Wounds.
Shields are generally stronger than heals in the first place so counter more damage; and in Crystal Scar this is even worse thanks to the global heal debuff.